The Next Superstars

Last year's crop of HS stars will be around for awhile

At the 2009 Nike Outdoor Nationals high school track and field championships in June, in the sweltering heat of Greensboro, N. C., two athletes, one after the other in the boys and girls 2-mile races, presented themselves like prodigies for future stardom. Or, rather, "super-stardom." With expanding national championships, invitation races and qualifiers for youth and junior international events, high school distance runners are gaining notice at younger ages as America continues scouting for future pros who might one day match strides with the Kenyans and Ethiopians.

As meet officials sponged down the last finishers in the girls seeded heat of the 2-mile, victorious Chelsey Sveinsson, a 16-year-old sophomore from Dallas, walked around woozily, her long braid soaked like rope on a ship at sea, explaining how she sought to break 10 minutes and still ended up mostly pleased with a national sophomore record of 10:04.85. She'd taken the lead after three laps at the North Carolina A&T track, gapped the field at the mile in 5:10.02 and run 4:54.83 for the second mile and 71.63 for her last quarter to shatter the former soph mark of 10:07.56 held by Jordan Hasay of California. Hasay – who was finishing her senior year and skipping NON to focus on the USA senior nationals in Eugene – had been the most talked about young distance runner in the country since winning the Foot Locker cross country nationals as a freshman in December 2005. (She repeated as a senior in 2008.)

The baton of precocity had been passed. "I was ready for this meet. I've been working on muscle memory," said Sveinsson, who attends Greenhill, a co-ed private academy on 75 acres with 1,244 students in pre-K through 12th grade. Jack Daniels or Joe Vigil may talk about "muscle memory," but a high school soph? Sveinsson, who on successive weekends last December won Nike Cross Nationals and placed fourth at Foot Locker, said pushing the pace was important to her. "I thought that I'd be happier maybe getting my best time than getting first, sprinting the last 100, and getting a poorer time," she says.

Sveinsson, the product of an Icelandic father and African-American mother, exuded a poise fashioned by a running circuit that has taken her, in the last six months, from Portland and San Diego in cross country to Philadelphia (Penn Relays girls mile winner by 12.4 seconds) and New York in track prior to Greensboro. Sveinsson had the audacity to request entry into the professional women's 1500m at the Reebok Grand Prix meet in New York on May 30. She placed 15th out of 16 but got the time she sought: 4:18.13, third fastest ever. (Hasay holds the high school record, 4:14.50, set at last year's Olympic trials.)

In New York, Sveinsson also acquired some charm school pointers. "I saw how the pros conducted themselves on and off the track, and was inspired by Anna Willard [winner of the 800m], who I talked with quite a few times," she says. "One thing she didn't tell me but showed me," says Sveinsson. "In warm-ups you don't have to show off, like, how fast you are. Sometimes I go too hard in my warm-ups."

For self-criticism, a new standard was set by another 16-year-old, Lukas Verzbicas, a freshman from Illinois who came to the U. S. from Lithuania in 2002 and sat despondent on the infield after placing third in the 2-mile. He said he'd expected to win in around 8:40, and accepted nothing less; he would have been upset with a win in 8:50. After leading through the mile, Verzbicas was jumped by a surging Trevor Dunbar of Alaska, who triumphed in 8:49.79 as Verzbicas trailed in 8:55.58.

Prior to this year, no freshman had broken 9 minutes for 2 miles and the frosh record of 9:04.4 had stood for 36 years. But Verzbicas was devastated.

As with Sveinsson, this was not really Verzbicas' coming-out party but more a summer solstice denouement. Racing infrequently because he's also a title-holding triathlete doing two or three workouts per day, he set a high school indoor 5,000m record in Boston last March at Nike Indoor Nationals clocking 14:18.42.